The days of strikes delivering a knockout blow are long gone

Share via

Modernisers within the Labour party mordantly summarise the state of the trade
unions by describing them as equal opportunity employers: anyone can be a
senior official, regardless of race, sex or ability. The observation is
confirmed by the remarks of Mark Serwotka, leader of the biggest civil
service union. At the annual conference of the Public and Commercial
Services Union, he declared that Labour had lost the election by refusing to
advocate anti-austerity policies.

Union leaders are living in a fantasy world if they believe that voters
shunned Labour because it wasn’t left-wing enough. Yet the long-term decline
of organised